Yield10 Bioscience, Inc.

Welcome to the second quarter 2023 financial results and business update conference call for Yield 10 Bioscience. During the call, participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presenters will address questions from analysts today. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Yield 10 Vice President of Planning and Corporate Communications, Lynn Brum.

Thank you, Melissa. And good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Yield 10 Bioscience second quarter 2023 conference call. Joining me on the call today are President and CEO, Dr. Ollie Peoples, Vice President of Research and Chief Science Officer, Dr. Christy Snell, and Chief Accounting Officer, Chuck Hazzard. Earlier this afternoon, Yield 10 issued our second quarter 2023 financial results. This press release, as well as slides that accompany today's presentation, are available on the investor relations events section of our website at yield10bio.com. Let's turn to slide two. Please note that as part of our discussion today, management will be making forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance, and therefore you should not place undue reliance on them. Investors are also cautioned that statements that are not strictly historical constitute forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These risks include risks and uncertainties detailed in Yield 10's filings with the SEC. The company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the day of this conference call. I'll turn the call over to Ollie.

Thanks, Lynn. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining our call. Let's turn to slide three. I'm pleased to report that we are making solid progress across the business as we operationalize our commercial plan to launch Camelina as a platform crop with a focus on biofuel-free stock markets and high-value market for omega-3 oils. Today, we'll provide an update on our business, including recent accomplishments, the market opportunity and trends driving the biofuel market, our progress developing herbicide-tolerant Camelina varieties, Our plan is to scale up EPA Omega-3 Camelina, to present second quarter financials, and summarize key milestones. We will then open the call to questions. Let's turn to slide four for progress on key 2023 business goals. Our main goal in 2023 is to establish and demonstrate the value train from yield 10 seed to commercial off-date products. I'm pleased to report that based on recent activities in the business, we are right on track executing against this goal. The value chain for camelina in the biofuels market starts with seed genetics and quality seed production. The next step is building relationships with growers in the target growing regions and signing up to grow camelina under contract. The third step is to line up grain offtake customers to buy the camelina grain for their crushing and biofuel operations. We have now demonstrated each of the steps in this value chain, starting with the winter camelina we contracted last year. We signed contracts and guided the growers through planting and harvest, One farm located in southern Alberta, we direct the delivery of the harvested camelina to a regional biofuel partner where the first crush of the camelina grain has occurred and conversion to biofuel is imminent. The photos on the right side of the slide show the harvest of winter camelina stored in southern Alberta and the delivery of the camelina grain to an off-take customer. This represents a key milestone for UO10, demonstrating the full value chain. On the business development side, our team continues to engage with potential supply chain partners, including ongoing discussions with Marathon Petroleum and Mitsubishi for investment and offtake agreements for camelina production in specified growing regions. Outside of the scope of these discussions, we have continued to respond to additional inbound inquiries from energy company partner prospects with the goal of creating the option to establish a network of alliances to supply camelina feedstock oil to the biofuel market. Let's now come to slide five, camelina as a platform crop. Our business plan is based on leveraging camelina as a platform crop for producing oil, meal, and specialty products. We believe that by leveraging the demand created by biofuels and our advanced technology capabilities, we can transition camelina from a niche crop into a major crop, planting in more than 30 million acres a year in North America. This won't be achieved overnight. While there are key attributes of camelina, they could drive the ramp up in acres. For example, camelina can be planted, harvested, stored, and processed on existing equipment on farm and at the processors. Next, another big driver adoption is that we are bringing forward not only spring varieties, but winter varieties of camelina. Our winter varieties are proving to be extremely cold tolerant and drought resistant. With time, winter camelina has potential for seamless integration into crop rotations with corn and soy. Here we would plant camelina as a winter cover crop in the fall after corn harvest and harvest late spring before planting soybean. I'll mention that in June, the USDA stepped up and indicated that they are offering crop insurance for camelina in many states. Let's now turn to slide six, the business model and markets for camelina oil and meal. We are using a closed-loop contracted grain production model to produce camelina oil for the biofuel market. The camelina grain is comprised of about 35-40% oil and a protein meal of about 55% for the rest of the seed. This is the co-product from oil extraction. Camelina oil has captured the attention of the renewable energy space because of its attractive composition and profile. It has a very low carbon index and its fatty acid profile is well suited for making renewable diesel and SAF. Camelina protein meal is approved for use in animal feed representing an essential market and revenue stream for the game. Now let's talk to slide seven, the biofuel opportunity. There's tremendous opportunity in the biofuels market where vegetable oil is processed into sustainable aviation fuel, SAF, and renewable diesel. New demand is being generated as new refineries are coming online, and as new environmental commitments are being made to utilize these cleaner fuels across the globe. Biofuels players face two major sources of risk, volatility in pricing and availability of feedstock oils, and volatility in the regulatory environment, which, among other things, can impact the incentives for biofuel adoption. For example, we are already seeing states like Illinois place limits on the amount of soybean oil that can be used for SAF, above which the tax breaks no longer apply. Camelina cultivation could address key aspects of risk for biofuel producers by expanding the overall supply of feedstock oil, especially using winter camelina. Growing Campbellino on otherwise fallow land either winter or summer can increase both feedstock oil for fuel and brings with it a new source of high protein meal. Let's now go on to slide eight, establishing production under early varieties. Our team has developed spring and winter Campbellino varieties that have enabled us to establish production in the value chain. WDH2 shown in the center of the slide is a winter variety with robust cold tolerance. WDH3 is an early maturing winter variety And E3902 is our genome-edited spring variety. The development of these three varieties enabled GL10 to begin the commercial launch with proprietary seed genetics, while we accelerated the development of our advanced varieties with elite herbicide technology for commercial launch in the future. Let's now turn to slide 9, grain production and offtake. Last fall, beginning in September 22, we contracted with growers to plant WTH2 in plant plots ranging from 30 to 160 acres. This contracting was done to set in motion steps in the value chain from planting to harvest to grain delivery to an off-day customer. The photos on this slide illustrate the steps of the value chain we have up and running in Western Canada. Our team contracted spring Cambodian acres, which were planted in May, and we expect harvest to be completed in the coming weeks. In third quarter, we are engaging with existing and new growers and seeing good interest in contracting winter acres for the 2023-2024 growing season. I'll now turn the call over to Christy for an update on the development of next-generation seed genetics, particularly HD and staxed HD camelina varieties.